Can you imagine living a life with a helicopter flying above your head watching your every move? By putting great pressure on kids, parents become “helicopters” following their children’s every move because they have strong aspirations for their children to succeed in academia. However, the reality is that children with overinvolved parents suffer from psychological problems such as low self-confidence and the fear of failure, which can lead to depression and anxiety. This phenomenon is described in an article called “Kids of Helicopter Parents Are Sputtering Out,” published on July 5, 2015 on Slate by Julie Lythcott-Haims. Throughout the article, Lythcott-Haims clearly makes valid points and states the problems vividly, while suggesting vague …show more content…
While she does a good job of criticizing helicopter parents, she does not provide clear explanations for the solutions. For example, she uses many examples, quotations, and statistics to criticize helicopter parents. She has heard many stories from college students when she was a dean in college. Therefore, she brings in effective examples about the stories shared by children of helicopter parents. She says that “Psychology professor Neil Montgomery of Keene State College in New Hampshire…found that students with helicopter parents were less open to new ideas and actions and more vulnerable, anxious, and self-conscious” (Lythcott-Haims 2). She indicates that students who experience helicopter parents are timid, uncreative, and dependent. Also, she says, “college students who have overinvolved parents are not able to negotiate a balance between consulting with parents and independent decision-making” (Lythcott-Haims …show more content…
For example, her solutions in the article are “Your kids have to be there for themselves. That’s a harder truth to swallow when your kid is in the midst of a problem or worse, a crisis, but taking the long view, it’s the best medicine for them” (Lythcott-Haims 3). Helicopter parents might not understand why they should change, and they want to know what the benefits of change are. If she had provided more detailed explanations, the article would be more understandable and effective so that helicopter parents would ponder more about the solutions and decide to change their thoughts or